Tag Archives: breakfast

Pop, Crackle and Snap have been around a long time, since 1933 as it turns out. Notable bits about this particular advert include the fixed-width font that today would make us think of a primitive computer printout. Given that it’s 1951 though, they’re doubtless going for a typewriter but I fail to see how that businesslike formality will help them sell cereal.

As in all breakfast ads the milk is stone white but in 1951 it might well have been whole milk (or cream) which really is fairly white. Lastly note that the inner bag design seems to be of wax paper. I wish the bags of my cereal boxes opened up so tidily.

Who is this “Mom” person and why is she in quotes like that? The text is straightforward and forceful and the reaction of the gents at the water cooler seems proof that the horrid yellow dress she’s wearing really is attention-grabbing. Note how the guy in the brown coat is just letting the whole jug splash into the drain. This stuff must be good.

Further, the detergent is so magical that you don’t even have to rinse anything. Just wash, wring out and hang up! How easy is that? I’d hate to see the rash you get from wearing soapy clothes all day.

Yesterday when we visited Popular Science in the 1970s, we found our magazine’s audience to be handy and practical people. Today we visit the Literary Digest over a century ago and the readers of this little publication have a lot of money to spread around. So let’s see what the richest or the rich were doing with their money in 1911. Cover price for this mag: 10 cents. That’s a modest $2.30 adjusted for inflation.

The cruise industry was alive and well. You could take a 78-day cruise for $325.

When they weren’t investing or reading their really heavy books there was much luxurious food! This Cream of Wheat ad today would get someone firebut I post it here as a relic of an archaic value system that made this sort of thing not only acceptable but a good advertising tool.